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Philadelphia recently rolled out bus-mounted AI cameras that capture people driving personal vehicles in dedicated bus lanes. Innovations like this are necessities because so many people suffer from Car Brain. Cities have long grappled with an infuriating dilemma: illegally parked cars that choke bus lanes, inflate commutes, and discourage potential riders away from public transit. Recent studies show that lane obstructions increase bus delays 20% to 30% during peak hours. But now cameras mounted directly on buses provide real-time solutions by using sophisticated computer vision and machine learning, instantly identifying offenders and automating ticketing. It bypasses the heavy costs (and limited reliability) of human enforcement. How it works Unlike typical cameras, the bus-mounted AI systems dynamically adjust to shifting environmentslight changes, weather conditions, and unpredictable circumstances that we so often encounter in urban environments. Besides the obvious benefit of keeping bus lanes clear, the technology generates data to optimize bus routes, traffic signal timing, and overall network efficiency, strengthening the backbone of a multimodal transportation system that integrates buses, bikes, pedestrians, and private vehicles. {"blockType":"creator-network-promo","data":{"mediaUrl":"","headline":"Urbanism Speakeasy","description":"Join Andy Boenau as he explores ideas that the infrastructure status quo would rather keep quiet. To learn more, visit urbanismspeakeasy.com.","substackDomain":"https:\/\/www.urbanismspeakeasy.com\/","colorTheme":"green","redirectUrl":""}} Philadelphias Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority (SEPTA) and the Philadelphia Parking Authority (PPA) launched their Automated Bus Camera Enforcement Initiative in April 2025. Deployed on more than 150 buses and trolleys, the system started issuing $100 fines after a 30-day grace period. And the results were immediate: fewer lane blockages and more on-time buses. On the West Coast, LA Metro deployed a similar technology in early 2025, issuing nearly 10,000 citations in the first few months. This effort boosted bus speeds by as much as 36% and also reduced collisions by 34%. (Thats a great reminder that keeping bus lanes clear benefits all road users, not just people riding the bus.) Faster travel times Beyond Philadelphia and Los Angeles, cities nationwide adopting automated enforcement report 10% to 30% reductions in bus travel times. Chicagos and New Yorks early pilots show rush-hour speed gains of up to 25%. Faster buses attract more riders and reduce the number of car trips. The AI systems also provide real-time insights into traffic patterns, violation hot spots, and infrastructure bottlenecks. New Yorks Metropolitan Transportation Authority used camera data to adjust signal timings, cutting bus delays by an additional 5% in key corridors. In Philadelphia, SEPTA is experimenting with dynamic routing, where buses adjust paths based on real-time congestion data. Scalability is another strength. Washington, D.C., and San Francisco plan to launch AI bus lane programs by late 2025, with ambitions to share data regionally. This could lead to coordinated networks where transportation systems work in sync across city boundaries. The challenges Challenges exist, of course. People are right to be concerned about license plate data being collected and high fines issued for parking in bus lanes. In response, cities have limited data retention to 30 days, made non-offender information anonymous, and run marketing campaigns about the automated enforcement. But theres one way concerned citizens can avoid getting their license plate scanned and a ticket mailed to their housedont park in the bus lane. Automated bus lane enforcement (similar to speed cameras and red-light running cameras) will be a cornerstone of robust multimodal transportation. Reliable, on-time service encourages more people to use public transit instead of private automobiles. Remember, a well-run bus system is an express sidewalka piece of infrastructure that dramatically expands the number of destinations within walking distance. The moment we stop treating the bus as a social program and start treating it like an express sidewalk, we unlock a public good that meets people where they are and moves them forward. {"blockType":"creator-network-promo","data":{"mediaUrl":"","headline":"Urbanism Speakeasy","description":"Join Andy Boenau as he explores ideas that the infrastructure status quo would rather keep quiet. To learn more, visit urbanismspeakeasy.com.","substackDomain":"https:\/\/www.urbanismspeakeasy.com\/","colorTheme":"green","redirectUrl":""}}
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E-Commerce
Imagine you invest $500 to help a startup get off the ground through investment crowdfunding. The pitch is slick, the platform feels trustworthy, and the company quickly raises its target amount from hundreds of people just like you. Thensilence. No updates, no financials, not even a thank-you. Youve been ghostednot by a friend, but by a company you helped fund. This isnt just an unlucky anecdote. Its happening across the United States. And while it may violate federal law, theres little enforcementand virtually no consequences. Thanks to a 2012 law, startups can raise up to $5 million per year from the general public through online platforms such as Wefunder or StartEngine. The law was intended to democratize investing and give regular people, not just the wealthy, a chance to back promising young companies. But theres a catch: Companies that raise money this way are required to file an annual report with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and post it publicly. This report, intended to show whether the business is making progress and how it is using investor funds, is a cornerstone of accountability in the system. As a professor of business law, I wrote the book on investment crowdfunding. And in my recent research, I found that a majority of crowdfunded companies simply ignore this rule. They raise the money and go silent, leaving investors in the dark. In most cases, I suspect their silence isnt part of an elaborate con. More likely, the founders never realized they had to file, forgot about the requirement amid the chaos of running a young business, or shut down entirely. But whether its innocent oversight or deliberate avoidance, the effect on investors is the same: no information, no accountability. This kind of vanishing act would be unthinkable for public companies listed on the stock market. But in the world of investment crowdfunding, limited oversight means that going silent, whatever the reason, is all too easy. Its not just 1 or 2 victims When startups go dark, they dont just leave their investors behindthey undermine the entire crowdfunding model. Investment crowdfunding was meant to be an accessible, transparent way to support innovation. But when companies ghost their backers, the relationship starts to look less like an investment and more like a donation. Its not just unethicalits illegal. Federal law requires at least one annual update. But so far, enforcement has been almost nonexistent. Concerned state attorneys general have encouraged the SEC to ramp up enforcement actions. This could work in theory, but its unrealistic in practice, given the SECs limited resources and broad mission. If nothing changes, the crowdfunding experiment could collapse under the weight of mistrust. Incentives worklets use them Fortunately, theres a low-cost solution. I propose that crowdfunding platforms hold back 1% of the capital raised until the company files its first required report. If it complies, it gets the funds. If not, it doesnt. Its a small but powerful incentive that could nudge companies into doing the right thing, without adding bureaucratic complexity. Its the same principle used in escrow arrangements, which are common in finance. In a home sale, for example, part of the money goes into a neutral holding accountescrowuntil the seller meets certain agreed conditions. Only then is it released. Applying that approach here, a small slice of crowdfunding proceeds would stay in escrow until the company files its first annual report. No report, no release. Unfortunately, crowdfunding platforms are unlikely to adopt this voluntarily. They compete with one another for deal flow, and any rule that makes fundraising slightly harder at one platform could send startups to a rival site. However, the SEC has the legal authority to update its rules, and this change would be easy to implementno new laws, no congressional fights, just a bit of regulatory will. Ive even drafted a proposed rule, ready-made for the SEC to adopt, and published it in my recent article, “Ghosting the Crowd.” The idea behind investment crowdfunding remains powerful: Open the door to entrepreneurship and investment for everyone. But if that door leads to silence and broken promises, trust will disappearand with it, a promising financial innovation. A tiny tweak to the rules could restore that trust. Without it, investors will keep getting ghosted. And the market might ghost them right back. Andrew A. Schwartz is a DeMuth Chair of Business Law at the University of Colorado Boulder. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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E-Commerce
In March 2024, Bill Anderson, pharma giant Bayers CEO, wrote an op-ed in Fortune vowing to bust bureaucracy, slash red tape, and eliminate layers of middle management to create a more agile and innovative enterprise. Our radical reinvention will liberate our people while cutting 2 billion euros in annual costs by 2026, he wrote. I wrote soon after that what Anderson was doing wasnt genuine transformation but had all the telltale signs of transformation theater: a false sense of urgency calling for drastic action when none is needed, a rushed strategic process (with little or no time for analysis or dissent), and a large, premature public rollout. Today, more than a year later, Bayers stock remains near all-time lows and investors are increasingly frustrated and its not hard to see why. Anderson went into an organization that was already reeling and introduced even more stress and disruption, with predictable results. If you want to create genuine transformation, you need to start by creating a sense of safety. The Disruption Mindset By publishing his manifesto in Fortune just nine months into his tenure, Anderson was following the advice of many change gurus: create urgency. Burn the boats. Announce the plan loudly and publicly so theres no turning back. Thats the disruption mindset. But was that really necessaryor even helpful? The problems that Bayer faced had been building for years. Its 2018 acquisition of Monsanto made it liable for billions of dollars of lawsuits related to the herbicide Roundup, which is thought to cause cancer. The firm had been building up debt for years and it had long been clear that patents of blockbuster drugs, such as Xarelto, were set to expire. None of this was a secret to anyone. As Anderson himself noted, the stock price had fallen by half during his tenure and was at a 20-year low. Its also not clear how a reorganization would address those problems. Litigation and debt dont immediately disappear just because you eliminate middle managers, nor does it help discover new drugs to replace expiring patents. Consider what the last few years have been like for a typical Bayer employee. First came a massive restructuring after the Monsanto deal. Then came years of public headlines about lawsuits, debt, and falling performance. And now, a new CEO storms in and announces hes eliminating thousands of jobs and redesigning every role and process in the company. Would that make you feel liberated, as Anderson put it? Or terrified? The Truth About Disruption And Performance A key rationale underlying the disruption mindset is that it promotes creativity and innovation. Undermining the status quo, the logic goes, creates space for the new and different. Yet there is little evidence that this is an effective approach and much that suggests a disruptive environment impairs creativity and innovation. In Cultures of Growth, Stanford social psychologist Mary C. Murphy points out that disruption impedes the growth mindset that is so necessary for supporting an innovative culture. In particular, she cites Amy Edmondsons research on psychological safety, which indicates that fear inhibits learning. She also points to laboratory experiments that suggest that performance goals impede working memory, a key component of creative thinking. One thing that you begin to notice when you spend a lot of time around people who perform at a world-class level is that they are more prone to anxiety. So when you shake things up, youre most likely to rattle the very people you can least afford to lose and who can most easily leave. Bayers business is, on a certain level, fairly simple: As long as it produces a steady stream of breakthrough discoveries, things will go well. But once that dries up, it becomes very tough to make money. Sustaining that flow means attracting and motivating exactly the kind of smart, ambitious people who are most vulnerable toand least tolerant ofdisruptive management. Stability Fuels Innovation My friend Whitney Johnson has argued passionately for the need to disrupt ourselves. It is only through venturing out of our comfort zones that we can explore new things, gain new skills, and push our boundaries. Thats what makes the difference between mediocre also-rans and truly top performers. Yet when we had Whitney on the Changemaker Mindset podcast, I noticed something interesting. Whenever she reached a juncture where she needed to disrupt herself, she always mentioned her husband. As we discussed the pattern further, it soon became clear that it was the love and support from her husband that provided the safety and stability she needed to continually disrupt herself. Whitneys not alone. We all need a sense of safety if we are going to take risks. Thats why, when IBM was on the verge of collapse, Lou Gerstner made sure his first trip was t IBMs famed Thomas Watson Research Center, not to demand results, but to reassure the scientists that he was committed to supporting their work. When Alcoa was at a similar point, its new CEO, Paul ONeill, made his commitment to safety, not profits. Many would say that all sounds nice, but naive. The real world is hard-nosed and cutthroat. Yet both Gerstner and ONeill were seasoned leaders, not wide-eyed idealists, and both took failing companies and transformed them into record-setting profitability in a short time. They did it not by disrupting their organizations, but by making them feel safe enough to embrace change. Creating Safety In 1997, when Clayton Christensen first published The Innovators Dilemma and introduced the term disruptive innovation, it was a clarion call. His key insight was that, under certain conditions, the basis of competition in an industry shifts, and the strategies that once made incumbents successful can suddenly make them vulnerable. Yet what Christensen didnt anticipate was how seductive the idea of disruption would become. Soon, all manner of punditsmost of whom never read his book or understood his conceptswere preaching the gospel of disruption. Before you knew it, everything had to be disrupted all the time. But the truth was, we werent disrupting industries, but disrupting people. The unfortunate reality is that when most leaders talk about disruption, theyre not thinking about business strategy but elevating themselves. Disruption becomes a personal brand. A way to feel bold, daring, and visionary. Yet while they are glorifying themselves, theyre making things harder for everyone else and theres a cost to that. Genuinely visionary leaders know that disruption and safety go hand in hand. The safer you make your organization, the more you empower your people to think boldly, take risks, and explore new territory. The more stress you create, the more you drain cognitive capacity, limit creativity and shrink the space people have for insight, collaboration, and original thinking. To truly lead an enterprise, you need to empower the people in it. You do that by building trust, which can only thrive in an environment of safety and well-being. If you want bold action, you need to create a space in which it can thrive.
Category:
E-Commerce
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